1 Million U.S. Consumers lost $7 Billion to online scams

 

The online threats associated with using the Internet remain high according to Consumer Reports's latest "State of the Net" survey. Consumer Reports projects that
U.S. consumers lost more than $7 billion over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes.

Consumers face a 1 in 4 chance of succumbing to an online threat and becoming a cybervictim.

The number of consumers responding to e-mail phishing scams has remained constant at eight percent.

Many underage youngsters are at risk on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, the survey found. In households surveyed with minors online, 13 percent of the children registered on MySpace were younger than 14, the minimum age the site officially allows, and three percent were under 10.

Computer virus infections prompted an estimated 1.8 million households to replace their computers in the past two years and 850,000 households to replace computers due to spyware infections in the past six months.

Additionally, 33 percent of survey respondents did not use software to block or remove spyware.

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